


FIC: I Love Snow

by jagnikjen



Series: Seasons of Love [2]
Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 20:15:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/957183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jagnikjen/pseuds/jagnikjen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Definitely AU in that Marian’s father is still the sheriff and Robin never left for the Crusades. Edward goes away on business, while Robin holds down the fort, uh...castle, unbeknownst to Marian until the following day when Robin finally seeks her out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	FIC: I Love Snow

**Seasons of Love: I Love Snow**

Marian Fitzwalter watched the snow fall.

And fall.

And fall.

It fell lighter now, but she couldn't remember a winter when they'd had so much snow at one time. Hopefully, the people in the outlying villages had enough stores to get them through the next couple of days. A trip, once the snow melted some, would be in order.

If the snow ever stopped falling.

But today, here in the small room she’d commandeered in the upper level of the secondary keep, she felt like an angel looking out over her earthly domain.

The crisp, cold air washed over her as she rested her elbows in the wide windowsill and looked out; the sharp air seared her lungs as she breathed in the freshness. A chill shivered through her and she hugged herself. In a moment, she’d have to close the shutters and start the fire.

But she wanted to enjoy the beauty laid out before her just a little longer. The earth was quiet, blanketed in a thick quilt of white. It wasn’t often the world presented such a pure face.

In the near distance, Sherwood Forest looked only half as tall from her vantage point here atop the keep. Even the tops of the trees were dusted with snow. Nothing but undulating swells of pristine whiteness surrounded the castle and Sherwood Forest.

It was eerily quiet way up here; much it like it must be in the heavenly realm farther above. She couldn't hear the everyday noises of the castle—the cooking and the washing and the cleaning. And way down below, Nottingham had all but disappeared. It was protected somewhat by the outer bailey walls, but there was no movement. Every living thing had taken shelter someplace warm and dry. She hoped.

Soft footsteps caught her attention and she looked toward the door.

"Marian?" Robin's voice came to her tentatively through the profound silence, and then there he was.

Her heart leapt. "Robin..." she breathed, hurrying toward him; she couldn’t hide her smile. She'd not expected to see him until the snow melted and certainly not here in the castle.

Sweeping her up in his arms, he twirled her around, placing a sweet kiss on her cheek and then on her mouth. He set her back on the ground, but didn’t release her, clasping his hands on her lower back, while she laced her fingers together on the back of his neck.

The familiar scent of mint teased her nose and she inhaled deeply. She loved how he smelled. Loved how they fit together as if they were a matching set. "What are you doing here?"

"I have been here since yesterday. Did your father not tell you I was coming?" he asked. His thumbs traced circles on her lower back sending ripples of delight through her.

Marian frowned. "No. Where did you sleep?" How could Robin have been in the castle and she not know? She had lookouts that were supposed to keep her informed. Either they were incompetent or her father had threatened every servant in the castle.

Robin chuckled and waggled a brow. "That may be why he didn't tell you,” he said, placing another, much less chaste, kiss on her lips. She sighed. How she loved being in his arms, feeling his mouth on hers.... And not only did he smell of mint, but he tasted of it, too. She would never think of mint in quite the same way.

When the kiss ended, she said, "My father's not here. He left for Leicester the day before yesterday. So tell me, Robin of Locksley, why have you not sought me out before now if you've been in the castle since yesterday?"

He released her then and moved toward the door. She felt the loss immediately. Their wedding day and married life could not come soon enough.

Robin closed the heavy oak door and moved to the window. "Because my love, I had business to attend and could not afford to be distracted," he said, pulling the shutters closed and tugging the drapery across the opening. "Are you not freezing up here with the window wide open?" He rubbed his upper arms to warm himself.

"I was just getting ready to light the fire," she said. "And again I ask, where did you sleep?" Why it was so important to her, she did not want to contemplate. But that Robin was in the castle while her father was not was rather curious. And she knew why her father had not mentioned it and threatened the servants—she would have sought Robin out and made no secret of it.

"In the guest chambers on the second level with young Jeffrey standing watch inside and a pair of soldiers outside so that I would not be tempted to visit your chambers in dark of night," he said, now kneeling to start the fire.

The room would warm quickly as it was rather small, only a dozen or so paces square. A large chair sat in one corner, while brightly colored tapestries hung on the walls to insulate it. High above the hearth, which was opposite the door, were two glazed windows that usually let in enough light. Because the sun was hidden behind the low snow-laden clouds, it would have been rather gray and gloomy if not for the golden light of the now crackling fire.

"And, pray tell, why would you visit my chambers in the dark of night?" Her heart pounded in her chest. There could be only one reason.

"Why do you think?" he asked, his voice low, as he pulled her into his embrace again. The looked on his face, in his eyes made her mouth go dry, and she swallowed.

He leaned in and cupped her cheek, brushing her lips with his. Marian's eyes fluttered shut and her skin prickled with gooseflesh at the light touch of his mouth against hers. Every point of contact between them suddenly burned with awareness and the heat radiating from him.

She leaned into him, into the pressure of his kiss, clenching handfuls of the heavy fabric of her skirts to keep from touching him. He'd sought her out for just this purpose—for an afternoon distraction, nothing more—and if she touched him, the spell might be broken and he'd think better of things and stop his delicious ministrations.

Tilting her chin upwards just a fraction, he deepened the kiss, moving his mouth against hers with intent. She could take it no longer—she had to touch him. Releasing the folds of her gown, she slid her hands around his middle and up his back, raking her fingernails along the understated muscles.

When the kiss ended, he arced a brow at her. "So...your father is gone and no one knows where you have disappeared to, and those who need to believe, think I have holed up in my quarters. We are virtually alone. It is up to you, Marian."

The look in his eye and the tone of his voice sent a shiver down her spine and a wave of heat coursing through her veins. It was an offer of more than an afternoon of kissing and heavy petting. He wanted to bed her. Made plans to do so, but still left the decision to her.

They were so close; the warmth of his breath caressed her lips. Had she risen on her tiptoes, their lips would have met again. He reached up and touched her hair, running his calloused fingers through the dark waves that fell over her shoulders.

It was her turn to slide her hand into the short hairs at the nape of his neck and give in to the desire to reacquaint herself with the inside of his mouth. It had been quite some time since they'd kissed so deeply. And now, it seemed, she'd finally get more than that.

She spent many a night envisioning the feel of his body pressed against hers. She'd had every conceivable fantasy, from him tumbling her in her large four-poster bed, to her—and this was a bit of a stretch since she had no knowledge—to her straddling his body in the middle of a remote clearing under the summer sun, the heat of the sun on her back, and Robin's green eyes smiling happily up at her.

But nothing she imagined prepared her for this. For the heat of his hands through the layers of her gown, for the pounding of her pulse in her head, for the heaviness, the pressure she now felt in her womanhood. The need, the want, the ache for him that took rational thought and sent it floating to the ground like the snowflakes outside.

He slid his thigh between hers, pressing against her private place; a small “ah” of surprise slipped from her. The sound broke whatever control he had left and the tapestried wall was suddenly at her back. Thankfully, his body against hers kept her upright as her knees threatened to give way. Her head buzzed as his tongue slid along hers before he sucked hard on her lower lip.

For all her girlish dreams, nothing prepared her for the reality of the heat of him pressed against her, driving the breath from her lungs with the weight of his body pinning her against the wall of this tower room. So many times she'd wanted to touch him, feel him solid and real beneath her hands, and now she had the opportunity to do exactly that.

She grew even more light-headed as his mouth left hers and traveled along her jaw to the curve of her neck, his breathing shallow, his breath hot and moist against her skin. It seemed unreal that this could actually be happening after dreaming of it for so long. In this one area, she was completely unknowledgeable and the reality was so much more...everything.

"We should probably stop..." he murmured into her neck even as he found her pulse point and gently laved it with his tongue. Chills rippled through her.

"...because if we don't stop now..." he continued. Hot hands traveled over her body, up her arms, in her hair, down her breasts, which were now heavy and aching for his touch, to rest on her hips, leaving a trail of fire even through the thick wool of her gown.

"...then we're not going to be able to stop," she finished in a breathy whisper. But she didn't want to stop. This was beyond her imagination. "Don't. Stop."

He removed his mouth from her neck and rested his forehead against hers, his green eyes tender. He swallowed, trying to pull himself together. "This is unfair to you. Your first time should be slow and tender and sweet."

"Should it?" she asked, her voice sounding ragged to her own ears. Right now, tender and sweet didn't seem so necessary.

"Isn't that what fair maidens dream of?" He caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "Tender touches under the cover of darkness and night clothes. I should not have come."

She pressed herself closer to him and rained kisses on his face. "I dream of only you, Robin. I dream of what I never knew till now—passion and wanting beyond reason, beyond thought." She ran the tips of her fingers across his lips, still moist from their earlier kisses. She caught his gaze and held it. "I want you, I want this...now. In the pale light of this day so I can watch you as you...” She rolled her eyes searching for the right words, but she did not know them.

“As I make love to you?”

She nodded and whispered, “Yes. Make love to me.”

He inhaled sharply, the tenderness in his eyes turning wild. "Mercy, Marian, are you sure?" he rasped and swallowed.

Nodding, she said, "More sure than I've ever been of anything in my life."

There would be a time for gentleness later, for teaching and discoveries. For skin against skin.

Now was the time for ignited passion and impatient lovers. And she was impatient. She wanted to taste and feel and touch him...

He kissed her then, hard. His mouth slanted over hers, parting her lips, his tongue sweeping in to slide and curl along hers. The taste of mint and of Robin was now branded on her senses forever. Her eyes swept shut as she allowed the sensations to wash over her. Heat and pleasure.

With one arm, Robin pulled her closer again, melding their bodies. She felt his hardness against her belly and there was no fear—only exquisite sensations.

She worked on instinct now, thrilled to see the roguish grin as she placed his hand on her breast. He needed no further prompting and squeezed, brushing a thumb back and forth across the already hardened nub of her nipple. She gasped, excitement rushing through her.

Could she make him feel as out of control and delicious as he made her feel? Pushing her hips forward, she rubbed his hardness with her body. A low moan escaped him and she smiled. Oh, yes....

Grasping at the fabric of her skirts he pulled them upwards and thrust them into her hands. She grabbed and held them, waiting for whatever came next. The cool air swirled around her legs, but she didn't feel chilled. He slid his hand inside her linen under wrappings, the contact branding her as his.

He kissed her again, a slow leisurely exploration of her mouth.

With his fingers, he parted through the hairs at the apex of her thighs.

Saints above...what was he...? Oh….

A single calloused finger slid into her and she cried out into his mouth. My.…

She was wet and slick—How could that be?—and his fingers felt cool and soothing against her heated flesh. He stroked her, her gasps descending into guttural moans.

Oh, Lord have mercy, this was...was.... Her brain grew muzzy even as she mewled in pleasure. She never knew a man could evoke such feeling by touching her there. And yet it felt so right...so good...

She wanted to watch him as he slid down her length of her body, but she would slide right along with him if she did not keep herself pressed against the wall. His head disappeared past the layers of her skirts and then she felt her under wrappings being pulled from her body.

Air whooshed out of her lungs when he pressed a kiss against the inside of her thigh and then abraded her skin with his facial scruff before dragging his tongue over where his fingers had been only moments before.

"Robin!" she cried out, consternation and pleasure warring inside of her. Surely this was wickedness, but it felt so...so...delightful. And it was Robin. He would not do things to her or with her that were evil, would he?

She bit her bottom lip to keep from crying out again as he hitched one leg onto his shoulder.

His nose teased her womanhood while he stroked her with his warm tongue.

Oh, heavens, oh heavens, oh heavens….

She began to float. Coherent thought abandoned her. Pleasure coiled within her. Flames licked at her center...she had to move, she couldn’t not move—her body demanded it...

She rolled her hips backwards and then forward, gasping as she pressed into Robin’s mouth.

Oh, mercy...oh, please....

His throaty chuckled floated to her ears. She released one handful of fabric to rest a hand on his head, raking her nails across his scalp as she grabbed a handful of hair. She bucked against him again, her soft cries and moans filling the small room and heightening her pleasure even more. Her head lolled back and forth; she was close, so close, but to what she could only guess...

He left her then, hot and throbbing, aching with unfulfilled need, and stood, kissing her again, the mint flavor now tinged with something more unusual and foreign. A strange frisson of excitement raced through her—it was her—she tasted herself—from down there—on him. Heat rushed to her cheeks. Oh, my.…

He touched her down there again and sensations she had no name for filled her, demanding resolution. "Robin," she whimpered. She needed completion somehow, and he could provide it. Would provide it and soon, or she’d explode into a million little shards of glass.

Blinking back the haze of passion that shrouded her, she reached for the part of him she'd never seen or touched before. The secret part of him she'd felt earlier. She hesitated only a moment. Surely decent women didn’t partake of such delightful and carnal behavior...but she didn't care. She wanted to touch and to know. She pressed a hand to his body.

He groaned in response to her touch through his braies and surged into her caress. Jerkily, he unclasped his belt and undid the ties on his breeches, pushing them only low enough on his hips to reveal himself. Then he pressed her hand to the flesh he'd just released.

"Robin, I..." She did not know what to do but closed her hand around the hot swollen flesh, pulling another ragged moan from him. With an instinct born to womankind, she stroked his hot hard length.

“Mercy, Marian,” he growled and finally pulled himself from her grasp.

Turning her jaw so he could kiss her again, he pulled her skirts up again and pinned the mounds of fabric between them. He hitched her leg around his hip, and then his hand was between them, guiding his hardness between the slick opening of her womanhood. She felt him like a rod of hot iron, pulsing and waiting.

He ended the kiss, but did not pull away from her mouth. "Marian, I love you," he said, and, with a single, sure stroke, entered her and then stilled, his hand gripping her thigh.

She cried out, more out of surprise than pain, and he swallowed the sound with yet another wet, messy kiss. He moved his body in conjunction with his mouth and tongue. Pleasure built once more.

Ending that kiss, he buried his face in her neck, murmuring unintelligible endearments against her skin as he pumped into her again and again. The feeling she felt before when his mouth had been below returned. Heat and pressure and delight....it built and built....

Her hands roamed his back, her nails raking into the corded muscles through his thin tunic. She barely heard his grunts and groans over the sounds of her own panting breaths. The room faded to nothing but the two of them, bodies rocking against one another as she matched his rhythm, meeting thrust for thrust. Her eyes drifted shut and she just felt.…

Robin’s movements became erratic as he attempted to bury himself deeper and deeper within her. "Marian," he grunted, his body going taut against her.

The pleasure-pain in his voice severed the string that kept her tethered to this world. She spiraled out of control and soared higher and higher, like an angel heading for home...wave upon wave of sensation washed over her...and her body clenched and spasmed around his.

“Robin,” she cried out sharply, her body still moving against his. Lord have mercy on her soul….

She floated and swirled her way back to herself, her eyes still closed and her lids and limbs heavy.

They stood for several minutes, bodies entwined and heaving, Robin’s face buried in her neck. And then she felt him slip from her body.

But he didn't move and he didn't say anything for a long time.

Mercy. What had she done—what had she allowed Robin to do to her? Perhaps he thought she was bad. Embarrassment and chagrin set her cheeks aflame and she took a deep breath, the action dislodging Robin from her neck.

With a small motion, Robin pulled slightly away from her and let her gown fall back into place. He looked at her then, noting the flushed cheeks and the slight distress on her face. “Marian, what is it?” he asked, keeping his voice tender. It was her first time—it wasn't what he thought it should have been; he almost regretted that he'd started the whole thing in the first place—almost. But she seemed to enjoy it...and she hadn't wanted to stop despite his feeble attempt to do so. Her eagerness for intimacies gladdened him.

A tear slipped down her cheek, another heavy breath.

With a gentle tap under the chin, he said, “Marian, look at me.” Had he done something or not done something...?

She shook her head once and dislodged another tear. “You must think me...”

And then a third tear.

Cupping her face, he brushed away the wetness with his thumb. “Think you what?”

“Wicked,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Marian.”

His toned brooked no argument and she opened her eyes, the sapphire blue blurry with more tears.

“I don’t think you’re wicked. I think you're beautiful and enticing and very desirable.”

“Surely noblewomen don’t...don’t let men...”

“You’d be surprised at what noblewomen do,” he said wryly. The lonely Baroness Birgitte Athenry came to mind—his one and only dalliance with a married woman. Plain as bread pudding on the outside, but wild and adventurous in bed. Robin couldn’t understand why the baron stayed away from home so much.

“Is this voice of experience?” she asked, some of her spirit returning.

He couldn't exactly deny it, nor would he. And she didn't seem mad, only curious. He was quite a bit older than her, and it was no secret that he had experience, although not as much as some would like to believe. He shrugged. “Men talk, too.”

“Even you?” Her brow arced.

“I have nothing to talk about. What goes on between us, stays between us. I don’t kiss and tell,” Robin said, giving her a light kiss. Marian aroused him far more with her innocence than any other woman had with her experience. Even the baroness.

“But what we did...” Marian blinked the lingering moisture from her lashes.

He leaned in close and looked deep into her eyes. “What we did was good and right and acceptable as long as both of us find it pleasurable. Did I do anything to you that you didn't enjoy?”

Marian bit her lip, but shook her head. “No, not really...”

“Not really...what does that mean?”

“It's just that...at the time, when you, you...” Her gaze wandered to the ceiling.

Heat licked up her face again, and Robin couldn't help but smile. Mercy, she was delectable. His body stirred slightly.

“...touched me with your fingers and then with your...mouth,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, “I...felt wicked—but in a good way, if that makes any sense. And that worried me.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “I want you to be wicked with me, Marian. We are to be married. We should enjoy the marriage bed, no?”

She looked at him again. “Well, yes, of course.”

“And if there's anything I do to you or ask you to do to me that you don't like, all you have to do is say so. All right?”

Marian nodded. “All right.”

“Come then, no more worries.” He took her hand and they settled themselves into the large padded chair he pulled near the fire; Marian snuggled into Robin’s lap.

“I love you, Robin.”

“And I love snow,” he replied with a chuckle.

**~Fin~**


End file.
